


If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

by healingmirth



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: inception_kink, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/healingmirth/pseuds/healingmirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for the prompt: "Eames discovers that Arthur is extremely ticklish. Arthur is utterly mortified and embarrassed beyond words, but Eames thinks it's hilarious and indulges in tickling Arthur at inopportune moments."</p><p>Also, my Thing about apologies is clearly showing.  Sorry, Eames.</p>
    </blockquote>





	If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: "Eames discovers that Arthur is extremely ticklish. Arthur is utterly mortified and embarrassed beyond words, but Eames thinks it's hilarious and indulges in tickling Arthur at inopportune moments."
> 
> Also, my Thing about apologies is clearly showing. Sorry, Eames.

Eames and Arthur continued to wage the great war of their relationship long past the point where any rational man should have expected it to end, which is to say with sex.

Because Arthur was clearly not just any rational man, most days were still spent with Eames using every available moment to test Arthur for a reaction, and Arthur spending a nearly equal amount of time studiously not reacting. It was a sort of balance, and it lead to a sort of consistency that Eames thought his parents might have approved of. This was perhaps why he kept pushing so hard to tip the scales.

While Eames always preferred the spontaneous action for its ability to startle, it seemed that Arthur was near-immune, during working hours, to both verbal jousting and increasingly ridiculous casual endearments. As a result, Eames had mostly moved his battles on to as many and varied casual touches as he could get away with. Trying anything like ruffling Arthur’s hair was right out, but there were a surprising number of opportunities to clasp his shoulder, or put a gentle hand on Arthur’s back when Eames needed to scoot by. (Not that Eames had ever legitimately needed to "scoot" in his life, but he was willing to make sacrifices in the name of science.)

Sometimes he could get away with a bit of skin contact, and the feel of the pulse at Arthur's wrist as Eames tried to direct his attention, or the barely noticeable scratch of Arthur's stubble when Eames tapped his chin, these things were enough to tide him over if they'd been too long at work.

All Eames wanted was a little acknowledgment that they, Arthur-and-he, existed in the light of day and outside bedroom doors. Just because Arthur possessed a frightening ability to compartmentalize, just because he claimed that every bit of personal that bled into the professional jeopardized their effectiveness in the field, just because there had been a few desperate moments in Eames’ brain when he’d believed that he’d be willing to do anything so long as he could keep seeing Arthur in his bed, with all of his power and passion and maybe even love burning in his eyes, well. Just because there were a lot of reasons for Eames to stop poking the bear didn’t mean he was going to throw away his favorite stick.

Eames kept pushing and Arthur kept not giving. Eames refused to believe that it was futile: say what you like about immovable objects and irresistible forces, it was just a question of persistence to find the right approach. If there was anyone capable of out-logicing Arthur, it certainly wasn't Eames. When he'd questioned, quite reasonably, if there was a business etiquette manual that covered intra-team relationships for brain pirates, Arthur threatened, not entirely facetiously, to document their business practices and hold a day-long meeting to review them. He was hesitant to test their fledgling relationship by trying manipulate Arthur with pure emotion, which meant that clearly he'd have to resort to trickery. Funny, the way it worked out like that.

 

However, as much as he would have liked to take credit for the idea that gave him the advantage, it had truly been an accident.

* * *

  
Arthur was leaning back against the edge of one of their work-tables, surveying some strangely dense short-hand diagram of God only knows what. It was one of the many that made absolutely no sense that Eames could tell, but nonetheless he joined Arthur in staring at it.

When Arthur started to talk, bringing Eames into his mental dialogue in what might have been mid-thought, the diagram remained impenetrable, but the plan, an implementation of some idea of Ariadne's for how to carry design details from a top-level dream into a lower one to use as cues, was typically brilliant.

When Eames said as much, hoping to earn a smile from Arthur, he also gently nudged Arthur in the side. And then Arthur fairly leapt away from him.

Until Arthur, Eames had yet to have a relationship that sex didn't resolve, one way or the other. After a few days in which he sometimes managed to think about things other than how infuriating Arthur was, he came to the conclusion that the problem was that Arthur thought they had resolved it. For his part, Eames was tempted to try to mark Arthur in some way so that he could be sure that the sly, charming man he woke up next to was the same one as the cerebral, pedantic man he researched and strategized with.

Eames was convinced that tickling Arthur was the trick to cracking his overly professional shell, and true, it did serve to shake Arthur up for a moment or two, but then he'd close down tighter than before. Still, Eames persisted, going after him with frisky fingers whenever the opportunity arose: Arthur standing in the doorway of Ariadne's design space, Arthur drawing connections in some otherwise impenetrable database, Arthur leaning over a table while Cobb droned on about some finer point of dreamscape manipulation. The moments when Eames could trick a laugh out of Arthur, or feel the shivering reaction in his body (occasionally followed as they were by Arthur threatening violence with his eyes or his words) were often the highlight of Eames' daylight hours.

But then, Arthur started keeping his distance from Eames with a fierceness that he’d never bothered with at any time since they'd met. For all that he was still gracious with Ariadne, and companionable with Cobb, he left rooms when Eames entered them, he kept tables and desks and shelves between them. Eames missed him, even while he mocked himself for missing anyone as utterly unwilling to indulge him as Arthur was.

* * *

In retrospect, the mature thing to do would have been to have a discussion during one of the times that Arthur acknowledged his existence as more than a mutable face and a cleverly-trained pair of hands. As Arthur seemed unwilling to say anything on the subject other than _no_ or _stop it_ , it had hardly seemed a productive use of his time. Besides, Eames was bored if he didn't have a few extra schemes to occupy his mind, whereas he was never bored when Arthur showed up in Eames' room to hold him down and fuck him til words were only a pleasant memory.

Eames'd still thought they were playing, a new version of the game that had served him so well at the beginning by delivering Arthur to him, though the tone had roughened a bit. He'd been sure that Arthur had been about to snap again, and Eames would win. He'd been woefully unprepared for the possibility that Arthur would snap, and Eames would lose.

* * *

"No," Arthur said. "You don't get to explain this, or charm me. You don't get to talk, and you don't get to win. You get to _stop_."

It wasn't at all fair for Arthur to set the rules - he had a habit of that, dictating rules as if they were facts - and so Eames didn't feel any obligation to play by them. "I have never in my life known anyone so opposed to a bit of fun--"

"We are not having fun!" Arthur cut in at nearly a yell. Eames certainly agreed with the words, if not the direction Arthur was going with them. "I'm terribly sorry," he said, sounding anything but, "that who I am is such an inconvenience to you."

Those were the sort of words, in Eames' extensive experience, that lead to Trouble. "Arthur, you mustn't think --"

"It much be great," he said, bitterness dripping off the word, "to be able to coast around and transform yourself to fit any situation. As you have no doubt noticed over the many, many days we have spent together: I don't do that: I have plans, and all I have is my body to execute them, and my mind to control it, so thank you for spending every spare moment reminding me of the one thing my body refuses to obey me in." Arthur's voice sharpened with every syllable, though his volume was low enough that the words probably wouldn't have carried across the room. The clipped tone and his body language would have been unmistakable at quite a distance, though. Arthur took an aggressively calm breath and scooped his overcoat up from where it was draped over a chair. "Thank you so very fucking much," he said, and left the room before Eames could say more than his name.

It was at that point, when he was standing all alone and watching the door that Arthur had stormed out of, that Eames started to worry that he’d allowed his hopes and prejudices, his own subconscious, to fill in the blanks rather than to question whether the facts were likely to match his perceptions. It was a rookie mistake that he’d never allow himself on a job. He'd always been under the assumption that "Love is blind" meant overlooking faults or differences, but it was entirely possible that his version was just prone to willful ignorance.

Maybe Arthur's blush wasn’t always a becoming pinking of his cheeks so much as it was a strangled-looking mottling, and what might have been a shy, flirtatious ducking of his head could be also be cover for Arthur drawn in on himself, a scandalized lecture inside his brain to _for God’s sake behave_ that Eames can easily imagine in his grandmother’s voice.

He hadn't realized. He also hadn't realized that there was any chance Arthur was right about their personal lives ruining their professional ones. It's something of a new feeling, being an idiot, and it's not one that he intends to repeat.

It’s a pleasant surprise that Arthur lets him in to his hotel room. The time that Eames spends waiting in his own room is something of a formality, more for Arthur's apparently-Victorian sensibilities than because he has a desire to spend any amount of time there.

He could easily have procured a key to Arthur's room, but he's glad it didn't come to that, as it's likely that Arthur might not appreciate one more apparent violation on top of the rest. From all the clues that the room is giving him, or mostly all the clues it isn't, like empty bottles or coffee or papers spread across a flat surface, it looks like Arthur was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. The bedspread isn't turned down, unsurprising, as Arthur rarely lets housekeeping into his room, and the abundance of pillows show a void where a body had likely been.

Despite Eames' allusions to the contrary, Arthur does not in fact sleep in his suits. His clothes don't look as rumpled as they would if he'd been dozing. When he's not asleep for a job, Arthur tends to roll on his side with one leg pulled up and his arm thrown over his eyes, curled into himself, shielded even when the room is full-dark behind curtains. It's not a position that lends itself to un-wrinkled cotton and wool.

(Eames had discovered that before they started sleeping together, but he'd lost no time taking advantage of it the first chance he'd had an opportunity.)

Arthur looks a little uncomfortable, but more sheepish and less angry, so Eames takes a chance and sits down on the edge of the bed, patting the space beside him. "My turn, yeah?" When Arthur sits down next to him, he faces Eames and crosses his arms, elbows tight to his sides.

This feels like the sort of moment where, in the movies, he'd be holding Arthur's hand and looking earnestly into his eyes, both things that he avoids at all costs. Instead, he puts his hand on Arthur's knee, and does something that could be interpreted as a comforting squeeze, or as an off-target grope. He does sort of need to apologize, but he's not much of one for apologizing, and it's early days yet. Arthur may turn out to be the wrathful vengeance type rather than the kiss-and-make-up type. Arthur looks down at his knee, pointedly, but doesn't move away.

"I'm not going to cry about it," Arthur says in the pause before Eames thinks of what he wants to say. "I just don't like it. I'm not having fun," Arthur says, to which Eames makes the response that he perhaps should have earlier:

"You should be."

Arthur rolls his eyes, which is an improvement, because an irritated Arthur, this he can work with. He decides to clasp Arthur's hand after all, which requires prying it away from his body.

"The human body is a marvelous thing, darling," he says with his best ingratiating smile. "You needn't be ashamed of the fact that you're not a robot. I'd never be ashamed of you for it."

"You know, my mom gave me this speech when I was twelve, and she did a better job of it."

"Twelve? That late?"

"If you're not going to--"

"Honestly, I thought we were playing the same game, love," Eames says. "And I am sorry that we weren't, but I'm not sorry for trying. I'd like to keep trying," that gets an accompanying eyebrow waggle, "if you know what I mean."

Arthur sighs, and hoping that means forgiveness, Eames leans forward, steals a kiss, and then pinches Arthur's cheek. He thinks that it could be the work of a lifetime to sort out his Arthur. The thought isn't at all unpleasant.


End file.
